The FX biker drama "Sons of Anarchy" returns for a new season at 9 p.m. Tuesday (September 6), and its verisimilitude has never seemed stronger. The way story lines illuminate the interior drama of life in an outlaw gang place the series among TV's best.

FXRon Perlman in 'Sons of Anarchy.'

Its steel-strong performances -- by leads Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal and Ron Perlman, but also by a large cast of utterly believable supporting actors -- make the show relatable even to viewers who've never contemplated biker life.

"Sons of Anarchy" does family drama, darkly.

Not surprisingly, the show gets good feedback from its most critical audience -- bikers.

"My experience is that the feedback has been generally very positive," said Kurt Sutter, creator and executive producer, during the Summer TV Tour in Hollywood. "I have friends that are in the life, and I really keep the lines of communication open. I know it’s a drama and we take a lot of liberties with how these guys live their lives, but my experience is that they embrace that.

"They consider it their soap opera, and I do keep the lines of communication so that it remains homage and not exploitation, because I never want to cross that line where they feel like you were exploiting their lives."

Sutter added that he gets handed glossy head shots from potential cast members when he attends biker events. Cast members get similar attention.

"I went to get my daughter her driver’s license," Sagal said. "I was at the DMV and (a) guy asked me to sign his parole card, the back of his parole officer’s card. He said he’d watched us in prison and he was really excited to meet me.

"(There was) also that story where a guy had Charlie and I both write our names on him, and he walked away and came back 15 minutes later and had them tattooed, these huge names, on his body. It was kind of interesting." A roundup of critical opinion on the new season:

(T)he start of the fourth season feels like a return to familiar ground on many levels. The Sons are back in their small Northern California hometown of Charming, and the conflicts largely arise from tensions within the club, along with the usual threats from law-enforcement.

It's good to have the show back playing to its strengths, rather than turning its characters into pawns in an elaborate game being played between characters the audience had no investment in. The three episodes I've seen are much more satisfying than all but the first and last episodes of last season.

(O)ne mark of a great drama is when it's able to draw us in to worlds some of us might not normally give a second thought to, whether it's the drug trade in Baltimore (“The Wire”) or a corrupt cop shop in Los Angeles (“The Shield”).

The FX series Sons of Anarchy is a legitimate heir to the likes of The Shield (where the Sons creator also worked), the Godfather films and The Sopranos. The main characters are, for the most part, criminals who commit the most dreadful of acts. Yet somehow we are not only drawn into their lives, we are asked to feel sympathy for them, or at least to believe that there are far worse people in the world.

Below, the season's opening minutes:

Dave Walker can be reached at dwalker@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3429. Read more TV coverage at nola.com/tv. Follow him at twitter.com/davewalkertp.